Comments

I'm not trying to be all holier than thou, and what not. I just really liked the book and when I read things and really like them I try to push them onto people. When you talked about the internal debate of 'what I know is logically right' and 'what I feel is right' it just triggered me, as that is a big concept of what the book covers.

Elaborating on a bit of a tangent here, I'm glad you brought up psychometrics.

My opinion is that differential psychology is at least as dangerous, if not more dangerous than evolutionary psychology. Differential psychology, also known as quantitative psychology, is built on the application of psychometric theory and is also arguably the dominant paradigm in American psychology.

It seems the subtlety and difficulty of the statistical arguments in support of hypotheses in differential psychology causes more confusion than enlightenment. Very few people are equipped with the conceptual tools to consume psychometric information gainfully and communicate it responsible. Even among professional psychologists, those with the ability required are a small minority.

I agree 100% with you on:

>But the real risk is not just that laypeople will misunderstand valid science and come to the wrong conclusions. It's that the science itself is shaky and people might give too much credence to studies that don't warrant it.

The basic evidence for group differences come from differential/quantitative psychologists who make very subtle and weak statistical claims that are easily mistaken for much stronger and more straight forward claims about differences between people.

Once a difference is empirically "established", evolutionary psychologists can go to town on evolutionary just-so-stories to explain the existence of these empirical "findings". These stories are often very difficult to either support or falsify with further evidence.

This process can easily drive home beliefs of differences between individual members of different groups where all that was shown to exist are statistically significant differences in group statistics which are difficult to understand, interpret or make intuitive sense of.

I say we must choose because that's what our brain is going to do anyways. Our brain, with it's fast, automatic, gut reactions always takes a stance. We can intellectually say that we don't have a high enough certainty of knowledge to form a belief, but on a lower level we've already taken a stance.^1

Now that doesn't mean we need to be closed minded to the alternative or pretend that we have knowledge we don't. A belief is what we think is true based on the knowledge we have, so our beliefs can change just as quickly as we get new knowledge or perspectives.

^1 This is taken from reading Thinking Fast and Slow , a fantastic book on how our brain works and how the shortcuts our brain takes can lead to things like optical illusions, biases, and cognitive illusions. Highly recommend.

Consider this: Would you be surprised to find out that God exists? We are surprised when reality doesn't match our expectations. If we expect to never find out that God exists, that indicates that we already believe that He doesn't.

by Winham 2017-12-06

I really do need to read that. I recently read Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow which is largely based on Epstein's work on dual processing.

I just checked out Tom Stafford's For Argument's Sake: Evidence That Reason Can Change Minds

>Are we irrational creatures, swayed by emotion and entrenched biases? Modern psychology and neuroscience are often reported as showing that we can't overcome our prejudices and selfish motivations. Challenging this view, cognitive scientist Tom Stafford looks at the actual evidence. Re-analysing classic experiments on persuasion, as well as summarising more recent research into how arguments change minds, he shows why persuasion by reason alone can be a powerful force.This is a collection of previously published essays, revised and expanded by the author, and accompanied by a previously unpublished introduction and annotated bibliography to guide further reading on the topic.Tom Stafford is Lecturer in Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of Sheffield.

I have my doubts, but we shall see.

by groundshop 2017-12-06

I completely agree. There are two topics the whole:
>The most important part is not a conviction but staying alive.

thing reminds me of.

1 - Daniel Khaneman discusses the differences between the experiencing self and the remembering self. Briefly, the way we experience an event is very (very) disconnected from the way we remember and event.

Prioritizing survival of rape suggests that the memory of rape is less painful than the experience of rape itself. Arguments to the contrary get into territory of suicide, which is just as hard to discuss as the topic of rape.

2 - Atul Gawande talks a lot about people diagnosed with terminal illness. For some, the focus of their lives becomes less about survival and more about controlling the narrative of their story, and how they're remembered.

At the point of diagnosis, many people will opt for painful chemo/radiation even for an extremely slim chance of a few extra years/months. Others disregard treatment and focus on controlling the parts of their lives they value the most - friends, family, unfinished projects. The latter group understands they're possibly shortening their lives, but choose to do so in order to retain control of their life story.

>We can say -I'd do this or I'd do that, but we don't know.

You're 100% right. I have no real idea what I'd actually do in the situations this thread talks about. I know what I hope I'd do.

>Let's hope none of us ever find out!!

I concur!

by throwaway26960 2017-08-20

The advantage of paper is that you can be more creative and use slow thinking[1]. Just take a look at Newton's[2] or DaVinci's[3] notebooks, how would they think so freely on a computer? Sure for a work task list, a computer is fine, but I find a computer too limiting on my creativity for myself. Added bonus: no ads, bugs, or distractions.

People that create apps create them to make money, not because they make you more productive or help you be more creative.

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